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How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

alexcrompton.com

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Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#71
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing chess since I was 6, and I'm 7 now. You should learn endgame and tactics, the basics of opening and maybe a few openings. endgame will teach chess. openings teaches you openings. especially when you're a beginner people will make moves that don't make sense. Plus aren't there like over 4 or 5 quadrillion possible moves just within the first 10 moves?

Are you able to confirm there isn’t a typo here? You’re 7?

with comments back past 2018 i think it's safe to say its a typo xD

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#72
post #37
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilization V? Warcraft 3? But any answer will be such only because no one tried hard enough to make a supreme AI.

OpenAI's dota2 bots were pretty impressive, they even had an open public lobby for people to play against.

They didn't dominate against human pros, neither did alphastar. So Humans still have a chance there.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#73

"Only about 10% of players ever gain more than 100 points, and only about 1% of players gain more than 200 rating points given years." This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I've gone from 500 to ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study, just some light YouTube watching. 500->800 felt like all it took was learning a few openings and not blundering pieces. 800-1050 felt like it came mostly from getting…

As someone who is at 1000 and also one of those people who only slam blitzes, I can confirm that one benefits from it only to a point, mostly developing skill in quickly reading the board and identifying the low-hanging-fruit moves.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#75
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: which part of that is interesting? Aside from Piotr Wozniak's writing, Gwern is the common coordination point for these techniques.

Oh, just interesting to see a reference to Gwern, whom I'm only familiar with through postings on HN, in a blog post that's on HN.

This is also on HN. Same bubble, not much of a coincidence?

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#76

Is there a well known strategy game where AI doesn't have better chances to win than a human? Is there possibly, math wise, that such games exist? I kind of dislike not having a chance when playing against bots.

There will never be anymore. AI simply outperforms humans at increasing rates. When in doubt, for a specific game a narrow AI can be trained up. For the current 1-2 years you can have a shot at physical/sports games, since robots are lagging behind AI capabilities, quite a lot.

Robots can’t even carry enough energy to play a physical/sports game, even if their AI was perfect and cost zero energy itself. There’s no imminent tech that will change this. We have many years.

I’d love to be wrong about that, but I’m probably not.

Check out Robocup for superhuman speed miniature soccer games. But the games are small and short. The humanoid games are much less well developed.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#78

"Only about 10% of players ever gain more than 100 points, and only about 1% of players gain more than 200 rating points given years." This seems like a wild claim. On chess.com I've gone from 500 to ~1050 in a handful of months without any real study, just some light YouTube watching. 500->800 felt like all it took was learning a few openings and not blundering pieces. 800-1050 felt like it came mostly from getting…

As someone who is at 1000 and also one of those people who only slam blitzes, I can confirm that one benefits from it only to a point, mostly developing skill in quickly reading the board and identifying the low-hanging-fruit moves.

Yup, starting to play 2+1 increased my 5+3 rating by 200 up to 1800 (lichess). But continuing to play 2+1 with no analysis or thought hasn't increased my rating further.

I do only play for fun / to kill time, though. So a few games a day on a metro or whatever. So with no aspirations to actually improve I think I'm at the peak of my natural ability.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#79

Is there a well known strategy game where AI doesn't have better chances to win than a human? Is there possibly, math wise, that such games exist? I kind of dislike not having a chance when playing against bots.

World of Warships has lots of strategy to it (and the bots suck at it). Good players don't shoot where the ship would be if it kept going straight but take into account the map, other ships positions and psychology to guess evasive maneuvers.

Re: How to learn chess as an adult (2021)

#80
post #10

and here I was happy to get up to 1000 in Chess.com after 2 years (only to then just hover around forever). Knowledge is power etc etc but at one point nothing replaces studying. I've found that anything under 15 minute clocks just feels like brain poison to me, though. Your brain goes completely into pattern matching mode and lose out on the actual interesting tactical analysis you can do when you're taking a bit mo…

It's not brain poison, if you're at the level you're at. Pattern matching is incredibly important, and dishing out many games to learn those and avoiding blunders would probably help you a lot.
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